


The Bookshop

by The Muse of Apollo (mtwb)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Writing, F/M, Fluff, Harmony & Co, Lyric Llama, Romance, Song fic, Sweet Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtwb/pseuds/The%20Muse%20of%20Apollo
Summary: Hermione hates her job. Harry has a plan to fix it.





	The Bookshop

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: Harry Potter/Hermione Granger  
> Tags: Fluff, AU  
> Summary: Hermione hates her job. Harry has a plan to fix it.  
> Author’s note: This is my second entry for this month’s Lyric Llama. Not what I should be writing. This was the lyric I got this time: “I cross my heart, And promise to, Give all I've got to give, To make all your dreams come true.” I Cross My Heart - George Strait. As is usual in these situations, I don’t own the song or Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was in love with Hermione Granger. It was the truest truth that Harry knew, and he knew that it would never, ever change. That was why, after the war, he had gathered his courage and asked her to go with him on the next Hogsmeade Weekend, as a date. 

She’d said no. 

Harry had been heartbroken, sure that he’d not only just been rejected by the woman he was in love with but had also ruined the most precious friendship in his life. Then Hermione had surprised him and told him that she couldn’t go with him that weekend because she was helping her parents move into a new house, and she’d be busy.

That was how their first date had turned into Harry helping the Grangers move from their rented house into a more permanent home. He’d kissed Hermione when they’d gotten all done for the day.

And she had kissed him back.

After that, Harry and Hermione were even more inseparable than they had been before. By the time graduation rolled around, Harry was even more sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Hermione Granger. He gave her a ring the night before they left Hogwarts, and she happily agreed to marry him. 

They married a year later, and they were both very happy about their lives together. It should have made for a very short story, one of those “and they lived happily ever after” type stories. Harry liked those stories, and he really wanted that for him and Hermione. 

But after a few months of marriage, Harry noticed that Hermione wasn’t as happy as he hoped that she would be. He asked her what was wrong, and she denied being unhappy, but Harry could tell. 

It broke his heart to think that she wasn’t as deliriously happy as he was, and Harry didn’t know what to do about it. He had vowed that he would do whatever he could do to make her happy, and he felt like he was failing her. 

It was a couple of months later that he finally found out what was going on. It turned out that Hermione simply hated her job. He had found her sitting in her office at their house, curled up in a corner, crying her eyes out. It was then that she finally confessed that she hated working at the Ministry of Magic and that she felt like it was draining the life out of her. 

“I don’t know what to do, Harry. On one hand, I’ve worked very hard to get the job I have, and it’s a good job. But on the other, nothing is changing. Even with your fame and influence, the Ministry and the Wizengamot are still full of stodgy old men who hate change and hate muggleborns, and it just sucks. I want to quit, but then what will I do? I mean I know we have enough money between us to live without working, but I need to work.”

Hermione babbled for several more minutes, and Harry let her. He knew that she really needed to get it out of her system and that she would feel at least a little better when she had done so. 

It also made him feel better. For one thing, her unhappiness was not something that he had done. He had worried for months that it was his fault, that he was the reason she was so unhappy. It was an unbelievable relief to know that that wasn’t the case. It also made him feel better because Harry thought that there just might be something that he could do about his wife’s unhappiness. 

After all, he would do anything to make her dreams come true. Anything at all.

In their third year at Hogwarts, Hermione had told Harry offhandedly that she wanted to one day be a librarian or to own her own bookshop. She had told him that if she hadn’t gotten her Hogwarts letter that she would have loved to go to university and then either work in a library or save up for her own bookshop, preferably one that sold rare books. 

Harry had found it pretty cute even then that Hermione wanted to work around books her whole life. It was just so...Hermione. 

Now, almost eight years later, maybe he could make one of those dreams come true.

-:::-

The very next day Harry visited Gringotts. After the war, he had made peace with the Goblin Nation, and they liked him now. Well, at least as much as they liked any human, which was to say not at all. 

They tolerated him because he had a lot of money. Harry had inherited from his parents, and a lot from Sirius, which made him a millionaire several times over. It had gotten even worse when Harry had found out that he’d gained a lot of money through the right of conquest and through Ministry rewards for the death of Voldemort. All put together, Harry was one of the wealthiest wizards on Earth. 

He hated the money. He’d have much rather had Sirius and his parents than their money, and the rewards for killing Voldie meant less than nothing to him. 

But maybe he could use some of that fortune to make Hermione happy. Harry knew that she would never ask. She had told him the night before that she was just going to put her head down and do the work, and hope that it would get better. Harry knew that it wouldn’t get better. At least not without something drastic which was unlikely. After all what could be more drastic than Tom Riddle? If an insane Dark Lord couldn’t get the British Ministry of Magic to change, then nothing would. 

Two hours later, Harry walked out of Gringotts a happy man. He’d made arrangements with his account manager to purchase prime storefront at the other end of Diagon Alley. Harry also obtained the number of a book dealer and a publishing house so that he could set Hermione up with enough stock to open. 

Harry had also found out that estate sales were great sources of used and rare books. Gringotts would periodically hold estate sales both for families looking to unburden themselves with deceased family member’s material goods and for those families that had a lot of debt held by the goblins. Harry had agreed to attend several auctions so that he could fill up his wife’s new store. 

He knew that in order for her bookshop to be successful, she would need to be different than Flourish and Blotts. Harry had been shocked to discover that Diagon Alley didn’t have a used book store at all and that all used books came from Flourish and Blotts, who marked the books up significantly or discarded them in favor of newer, more expensive versions.

Harry figured that he would get a good start on the work needed to get Hermione up and running and then bring her in to finish it off and start it up. He knew that he had a lot of work ahead of him. 

-:::-

The next three months were odd for Hermione Potter. She had decided that she was going to button herself down and do her job, even if it made her dreadfully unhappy. She had kept that from Harry for as long as she could, but he’d found her crying about it and she had been forced to tell him why she was so depressed. He wanted to help her, but Hermione knew there was very little he could do.

Not that Hermione had actually seen him much in the last three months. Harry was constantly busy. At first, she thought that he was taking extra work in the Auror department, but she found out that he wasn’t actually working any extra time at his job. That had confused her because that was what Harry had claimed he was doing. 

At first, Hermione’s insecurities got the better of her. Harry had probably found someone prettier, someone, who wasn’t so depressed about her job, someone who could be happy and carefree. 

But after about thirty seconds of that nonsense, Hermione had shaken her head and realized that there had to be another explanation. There was no way on earth that Harry Potter would cheat on her. She could imagine him breaking up with her someday, but he’d never be unfaithful. It just wasn’t in his character. 

So Hermione had sat back and decided that she would wait for more information. Harry was not a good liar, and now that she knew he was lying, the signs all pointed towards one conclusion. Harry was trying to surprise her with something. Since they were twelve years old, it was always quite obvious when Harry was trying to be sneaky about a gift or some other surprise. He would look at her and smirk sometimes, never being able to believe that he had information that she didn’t. And he was doing that now quite often. 

The smug bastard. 

Hermione wasn’t quite sure what surprise Harry was hiding from her. Her birthday was still months away, as was Christmas. 

But she’d let him have his fun. He’d tell her eventually, and then she could kiss him and tell him he needed to stop smirking at her when he thought he was getting one over on her. 

-:::-

Hermione grumbled as she let herself be guided along some path. She knew they were in Diagon Alley from the sounds around her, but she didn’t know why they were there, nor why Harry had insisted that she be blindfolded. She was so going to get him back for making her walk through a crowd with a blindfold. Maybe she’d make him wear one the next time they made it to bed, and then she could tease him and make him suffer. Yes, that sounded like fun. 

“Okay, you can take the blindfold off,” Harry said.

Hermione did as she was told and then stared blankly at the sight in front of her. The building she stood in front of was a blank shop with no signage out in front. Then she took a closer look and saw books on display in the windows, and if she squinted she could see rows and rows of bookshelves on the inside of the shop.

“Harry? What is this?”

“It’s a new bookshop that is going to be opening up soon in Diagon Alley,” Harry answered nervously. 

“Okay,” Hermione said, drawing out the word. “Why are we here? I mean it’s great that old Flourish is going to get some competition, but why are we here?”

“Well, it has a special name. I thought that you’d enjoy seeing it.”

“What is its name?” 

“Potter’s Literary Emporium.”

Hermione spun to look at him. “Why does it have our name on it? I don’t understand… Wait. Did you do this? Did you buy a bookshop? Why on earth did you buy a bookshop?”

“It’s for you,” Harry said simply, looking more nervous.

Hermione stared at him in shock. Harry, mistaking her silence for anger started to babble.

“You told me when we were still in school that your dream was to one day own your own bookshop. I know that it was a long time ago, so maybe that’s not your dream anymore, but you are so unhappy at the Ministry. I know I shouldn’t have done it this way, but I wanted to surprise you…”

“Harry…”

Harry stopped talking and looked away from her. “If you don’t want to do this, that’s okay. I can...I don’t know... sell it or something.”

“Harry…Look at me.”

Harry turned his head just in time for Hermione to press her mouth to his, kissing him deeply. When she pulled back a moment later, breathing hard. “I love you so damn much. I mean you’re an idiot, but you’re sweet and you’re my idiot.”

“So you don’t like it,” Harry asked in a daze. Hermione kissing him like that was always an experience that made it very hard to think. 

“No, I love it. I think it’s a great idea, I wouldn’t have even thought of doing this myself. I’ve always been stubborn and I wanted to make my job work. But you were right that night, you know, I shouldn’t work myself so hard at a job that I hate.

“And I have always dreamed of running my own bookshop. Though we need a better name.”

“I didn’t know what to call it so I just went with something simple. I knew you’d want to rename it. None of the business documents have been filed yet. All I’ve done is purchase the premises and bought a bit of stock from estate sales and from a book dealer that my account manager knew about.”

“Estate sales?”

“Yeah, it turns out that a lot of rare and valuable books are sold through sales when people die, even here in the wizarding world.harry potter adult I got thousands of books that way. Ron has been helping me put them in some sort of order, though I had to buy him season tickets to the Cannons for the next ten years in order to get him to help.”

“Ron helped you with books?”

Harry laughed. “I know, right?”

“I hope you got that on video.”

“I can show you the memory if you want, the first day was very funny.”

“I bet.” Hermione wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Thank you, Harry. This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“You’re my wife, Hermione. It’s my job to make sure your dreams come true,” Harry said with a grin.

“Corny, Mr. Potter. But very sweet,” Hermione said with a giggle before kissing him again. Harry wrapped his arms around her tighter and kissed her back.

Life was good, and Harry was determined to always make sure his Hermione’s dreams always came true, no matter what. 

**fin.**


End file.
